Thermal performance of a Divided-flow type Shell and Tube Compact Heat Exchanger. (February 2020) - Nagaraj, S
Abstract: Shell and Tube heat exchanger is widely used as heat-transfer equipment in various process industries. The paper attempts to understand the flow, heat transfer characteristics and the effectiveness of the divided-flow type heat exchanger. The study is based on the CFD based simulation methods and the experimental methods. The study provides the flow and heat-transfer characteristics of the divided-flow type heat exchanger by using validated Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. Results are obtained for the temperature, velocity and turbulence intensity distributions in the flow domain. The results from the simulation and experimental study are used in determining the effectiveness (ξ) of the heat exchanger using Logarithmic Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD) and Number of Transfer Units (NTU). The simulation and experimental performance are found to be in good agreement highlighting the minimization of losses in the experimental setup. This confirms the accuracy of the flow-based heat and turbulence distributions. The effectiveness value shows that the heat exchanger can be used for compact applications